Climate change and a growing world population challenge modern agriculture to maintain sustainable production over time on increasingly scarce arable land. The use of plant biostimulants emerges as a safe and environmentally friendly alternative to improve crop production and yield under these unfavorable conditions. Among all plant biostimulants, higher plant-derived biostimulants (hPDBs) are of special interest, due to all the advantages they present in terms of sustainability, production costs, safety, and, mainly, due to the diversity of bioactive compounds that compose them¹. In this work, a novel type of biostimulant, based on yellow carrot cell culture, was developed through biotechnological production. Using elicitation techniques², the production of bioactive compounds with a described biostimulant effect, mainly phytosterols and phenolic compounds, was increased in cell suspensions. A compositionally stable product was prepared, which was applied for tomato seed priming, subjected to salt stress conditions to evaluate its potential biostimulant effect. The germination index (GI) and typical oxidative stress markers in tomato seedlings were determined.

References

1. Martínez-Lorente SE et al., Antioxidants, 2024; https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox13030318.
2. Sabater-Jara, A. B. et al., PCTOC, 2013; https://doi.org/10.1007/s11240-013-0320-4.

Acknowledgements

The Agroalnext Programme was supported by MCIN with funding from the European Union NextGenerationEU (PRTR-C17.I1) and Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia–Fundación Séneca and Fundación Séneca-Agencia de Ciencia y Tecnología (22016/PI/22), “Ayudas a proyectos para el desarrollo de investigación científica y técnica por grupos competitivos” from “Programa Regional de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica (Plan de Actuación 2022)”. S.E.M-L. received a grant from Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades of Spain (FPU21/01593), and J.M.M-G. received a grant from Universidad de Murcia (109144/2022).